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Woodyates Inn

Woodyates Inn, located between Salisbury and Blandford, was before the motor car age an important coaching inn. This was an inn on a route followed by horse-drawn coaches at which the horses could be changed. 

Hiding from his pursuers, the rebellious Duke of Monmouth stayed there in 1685 disguised as a shepherd. Despite his disguise, the illegitimate son of King Charles II was captured near Horton and was beheaded for treason. It was said the ghost of Monmouth appeared each year in the inn on the anniversary of his death.

Woodyates Inn did not enjoy the best of reputations and in 1793 a traveller wrote:

‘I look upon an inn as the seat of all roguery, profaness, and debauchery; and sicken of them everyday by hearing nothing but oaths and abuse of each other and brutality to horses.’

This traveller, John Byng was a retired army officer and he also described Woodyates Inn as ‘miserable’ and ‘beds shocking’. He could not wait to leave but  he had trouble waking anyone to pay the bill. Arriving in Salisbury in contrast, he was treated civilly, attentively but most importantly ‘in time for the hot rolls.’

Despite its bad reputation, King George III had his horses changed there during regular visits to Weymouth. He did, however stay in his own specially reserved room. The monarch often approached the Woodyates Inn at dusk. To avoid an accident, Mr Wood of Woodyates provided a local lad dressed in white on a grey horse who acted as a guide. On another occasion, the royal princesses Elizabeth and Augusta were about a mile from Woodyates Inn when a wheel came off their coach. With their ladies, they walked to the inn where they were accommodated overnight. When the royal parents followed several weeks later, host Shergold was presented with a service of china. The King’s visit to Woodyates Inn is mentioned by Thomas Hardy in his novel ‘The Trumpet Major’.

Another to change his horses at Woodyates Inn was Lieutenant John Lapenotiere as he raced to London to bring the news of Lord Nelson’s victory and death at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805.

A later host of the Woodyates Inn was Thomas Browning a relative of the poet Robert Browning. Maybe to improve its reputation, the inn changed its name to the Shaftesbury Arms but after damage from a fire the hostelry was demolished back in 1967.

(Illustration: Woodyates Inn by Thomas Rowlandson.)

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